A while back I got it in my head that I could make crackers at home. You see, crackers are, after all, simply cookies that are not sweet. They are similar ingredients, at least, and the process is similar to making cut out or roll out cookies. The results of this experiment were mixed though. Fresh out of the oven, they were the best crackers I'd had in a very long time. Stored, though, they lost their crispness, their crunch, their innate 'crackerness'. And so, the recipe stayed where it had come from, in a cookbook I dearly love but don't always use.

Then I found this recipe. It is the inverse, nearly, of what I'd tried to do before. These are cookies, really, meant to mimic crackers. They are good if they are crisp, but if they are not, well, they are still cookies, still good. If they dry out a bit, well, they are animal 'crackers' after all. There is inherent forgiveness to this recipe, when you approach it this way. I like that.

1 cup rolled oats, blitzed in a food processor or finely chopped with a sharp knife

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus additional for the counter

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

Directions:

Combine the butter and brown sugar in a bowl, and beat until the mixture is smooth and evenly colored. Add the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Once the spices are beaten in, add the honey, egg and vanilla. Beat for a moment, then scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat until fully incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the oats, all-purpose flour, and the whole-wheat flour. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until fully combined. Form a ball with the dough, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but up to 12, wrapped in plastic wrap or wax paper.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and remove the dough from the refrigerator about 15 minutes before you want to roll it out. Lightly grease two baking sheets, or cover them with parchment paper or a silpat. Set aside. Lightly flour the counter or board you plan to roll the animal crackers on. Roll out half the dough to an 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut shapes in the dough, and transfer those shapes to your baking sheets. Leave about a 1/2 inch between the animal crackers. (I left considerably less room on my cookie sheet and had none grow together. Crowd at will, but with caution.) Reroll any scraps, until all the dough is used. Repeat with the second half of the dough.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, (11 to 12 for me), switching the trays midway through baking, until the edges of the cookies are golden. Enjoy!

She hummed as she chopped the carrots. Sometimes nonsense notes, sometimes the melodies to hymns of which she had long since forgotten the words. The knife made a gentle ‘thwap, thwap’ against the cutting board, soothing in its regularity. She used the edge of her palm to push the diced carrots back up onto the blade, then scraped them off into the pot of slowly simmering soup. There was something comforting, something calming about making soup. Taking the small bits and pieces and leftovers of meals and dropping into a bit of water, or, if she’d thought ahead, some stock, somehow produced a thing greater than the sum of its meager parts.

Les didn’t really want to leave. It wasn’t the hotel, Heaven knows it wasn’t that, they were all the same. Sleeper Suites, Pearl’s Inn, The Fawn Motel, they were all the same. Small rooms, door directly to the outside, thirty years out of date and in terrible disrepair. That’s why he chose them, actually, because he knew he’d find work. Les was a jack-of-all-trades, good at most repair jobs, and couldn’t stand to stay in one place for long. He’d roll into town, set up residence in a somewhat seedy motel, exchanging rent for repairs and a bit of cash for food and fuel, and then move on when most things were in order and he got the itch to drive again.

Chris and I have talked about the things we'd like to teach Jonathan as he grows up. How to do laundry, how to clean a toilet, etc. High on the list is teaching him how to cook. I've shown him a couple things, how to measure flour and spices, how to crack an egg without exploding it, (I didn't know you could make an egg explode quite so well as my son has done. Thankfully we've *mostly* moved past that.) I'm learning patience in the process of this teaching, mainly because it's all I can do not to take over and do things "the right way" and just let him stir a bit with the wooden spoon when I'm done.

Somehow, in the midst of winter, I always find my way back to this space. It's not that I don't have much to say the rest of the year; in fact, I probably often have more to say than I actually get written down. It is just that, somehow, in the depths of winter, I find myself drawn to write again. It is a good thing for me.

I'm learning routines this year, learning things that perhaps others learned long ago. Though I usually recoil at the thought of scheduling my day, I have learned that there is freedom in having a schedule. The things I want to get done, get done. I still find rest in the midst of it all, at least when I remember too, but the days go so much better when rest is not my main goal. For that to work, I have to sleep well at night; I'm working on that too. I tend to be rather restless, and wide awake through some of the night, every night, and so often find myself catching a nap during the day. Thankfully, working at home allows this, but I feel the loss in my productivity. And so I'm learning the art of the schedule.

I hope to bring a bit of that here, but I'm not committing anything to paper just yet. I've got to figure out life schedules before I figure out publishing schedules. It will come. Until then, thanks for sticking it out with me. :)

There are some mornings where having something made ahead of time, something preferably more portable than a bowl of cereal, is advantageous. Sundays tend to be that way in our house. Often Chris or I need to be early to church, sometimes both of us, and if I don't have something made ahead of time, one or both of us forgets to eat breakfast. We usually remember an hour or so later, just before church is starting, and too late for there to be anything done about it.

I'm nearly done harvesting everything from our garden. I need to do final cleanup this week, pulling up dead plants and trimming others, but I'm somewhat dreading it, mainly for the mosquitoes and other bugs that have taken up residence, who like to defend their territory against me. It must be done though, as our last yard waste pick up day is Thursday. It seems earlier this year, even though it's not. Oh well. Harvest has gone well this year, despite my having lost interest in the garden in August, as I always do, only gaining interest again when it was cooler in late September. Everything survives without me at this point, especially since it's started raining again. I can't remember the last time I watered my garden, honestly.

Margaret fidgeted in her seat. Her mother had given her a couple crayons and a small pad of paper to keep her occupied, but she'd filled them up, front and back. The ceremony hadn't even started yet, and she was bored. She kicked her feet, which was okay right up until she accidentally kicked the back of the seat in front of her, where her grandmother Marie was sitting. She turned her head and gave Margaret such a look that she sat still for a full minute afterward.